Remembering A Hero
by Dertt
Summary: A guild hero in his prime reflects on a man he once knew who became the legend that everyone knows.


"I remember Judas.  
I'm sure most people only remember him as 'Sabre,' if they really remember the man at all, and not just the legend.

Funnily, he's not legendary for being a boy from Oakvale who witnessed the town's destruction, joined the Guild and eventually rose up to defeat the great and terrible Jack of Blades.   
Nor because his mother was goddamn Scarlet Robe herself.  
No. That would be silly.  
He obtained legendary status by being the crazy person who conquered the arena in his underwear.

Two weeks earlier, he took down an especially large White Balverine with a bleeding obsidian hammer.  
Afterwards, he immediately walked into Knothole Glade, the village the beast was terrorising, dropped the Balverine's head at the chief's feet, and proceeded to get one of those tattoos that used to be the highest mark of honour for warriors.  
So part of the reason he took the boast to do the arena half-naked was so he could display his self-awarded valiance tattoo to thousands of people as he used his longbow to dispatch countless monsters and bandits.  
Cocky bastard, he was.

His back sported the eyes of Avo.  
Odd, considering he never really believed in Avo (and would say so whenever he found the opportunity).   
Perhaps it was for irony? Wearing the mark of a being that supposedly guides all good heroes, while believing that his own stubbornness was the root of his greater accomplishments?  
His face, for the longest time, was tattooed with the Coron Visor, but later in life he had that design removed and replaced with autumn leaves. As far as I could tell, it was out of mourning some sort of loss which he never discussed.

Image was a big thing to him. In spite of that, outwardly he seemed to be a bit of a nutter.  
Looking at him, you couldn't help but wonder 'Is this how contemporary heroes are supposed to look?'  
He wore the hairstyle usually referred to as the 'pudding basin,' and his manner of dress was unpredictable.  
It was not uncommon to see him wearing something like, a woman's blouse with chain mail leggings, or assassin pants with a guard shirt.

All of his actions were determined by some sort of malleable code of ethics I'm pretty sure he built for himself.  
He exposed Lady Grey of Bowerstone as the murderess she was, refused to kill his former classmate Whisper, spared Twinblade, gave up the Sword of Aeons to spare his sister, helped ghosts to find rest, was very kind to children, and only took one wife.  
Then he also did things like…  
Well, see, the chief of Knothole Glade was planning on making his youngest son his heir, much to the dismay of the older son.  
Judas, for whatever reason, turned the younger son over to the older one's goons; Avo knows what they did to the kid.

If I'm going to list Judas's vices, I can't leave out the fact that he was a kleptomaniac.  
I arrived at Hook Coast for a quest once, just in time to see him being apprehended by the guards.  
After he paid off the guards, I asked him what he did.  
Turns out he'd gotten a shop owner drunk and robbed the place blind, and he implied that it wasn't his first time doing something of that nature.

Briar Rose was very fond of him.  
I understand that they didn't start out on very good terms, but it wasn't long before they began taking all sorts of two-person quests together.  
They both read a lot, and relied more on skill and will than strength.  
When I was around both of them at once, I always sensed a sort of romantic tension.  
Briar fervently denied that she was interested in him.  
I can recall seeing them fight alongside one another once. It was a sight to behold.

You see, it was when Jack was activating the focus sites around Albion. There were Minions crawling all over the place.   
I'd not been out of the Guild for long, and I still wore my hooded apprentice outfit and used a steel longsword, but I did my fair share of damage.  
Doubt I'll be in the history books for that.  
Though this isn't about me; it's about Judas.

Judas, the Mayor of Bowerstone, the guy who reopened trade with the Northern Wastes, the guy who escaped from Bargate Prison unscathed, the guy who activated the Snowspire Oracle, and of course, the guy at the arena who shot at a King Scorpion while in his underwear.  
The son-of-a-bitch who ran around Darkwood wearing a wizard hat that fell over his eyes, who couldn't decide whether to decapitate bandits or buy a round for them.   
Sabre, the mythical descendant or Archon… and the guy who stole from the cabinets in people's houses. 

He was a great hero always, but usually quite a ridiculous person.   
While waiting to enter the arena, he picked a fight with another one of the heroes who was beating up one of those straw dummies."

Leaning back in his chair, the middle-aged hero set his mostly empty beer glass on the round wooden table and looked up at the ceiling, pondering what else he could say about Judas.  
After several moments of nothing but background noise from the others in the tavern, the hero's eyes widened as if he'd had a revelation.  
As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, however, he was interrupted by the man with whom he'd been speaking.

"Sir," the man said, "I am a bard. I am supposed to tell _you_ stories of heroes."


End file.
